 It is intended to capture in a single index the ability of an ecosystem to prevail against disturbance by virtue of its combined organization and size.One way of depicting ascendency is to regard it as "organized power", because the index represents the magnitude of the power that is flowing within the system towards particular ends, as distinct from power that is dissipated naturally.Almost half a century earlier, Alfred J. Lotka (1922) had suggested that a system's capacity to prevail in evolution was related to its ability to capture useful power.